Isabelle
LAFORGUE-DESGUET
Lion-sur-mer
Isabelle Laforgue-Desguet, granddaughter of Henri Desguet, head of Passive Defence at Lion-sur-Mer
My birth name is Isabelle Desguet. I was born on 25 January 1956 in Caen.
My dad was born on 4 March 1914, just as his father was about to go off to war.
Otherwise, you should know that my parents were married on 29 April 1939 and that a year later, my father was taking part in the Battle of Narvik. So it was difficult for newlyweds to be separated like that.
He returned in July 1940, just as the occupation was beginning.
Henri and his son Pierre Desguet, united in the same commitment
The main thing about the period of occupation is that he stopped all activity in his company because he didn't want to work for the occupier.
And a plumbing business could come in handy during the war. So he closed his business, and in order to provide work for his workers and himself, he became a fishmonger.
So he bought some Doris (small flat-bottomed boat). His workers were all fishermen as well. And they fished for mussels here in Lion.
My grandfather died on 2 July 1944 in the church square. So I didn't know him, he died 12 years before I was born.
I just saw his portrait at my grandmother's house. And we didn't talk much about my grandfather. The trauma was great, because the whole family was still sleeping in shelters on 1st July. And when they heard the explosion, which must have been quite considerable, because even the church had been hit, they immediately went to see what had happened.
He had encouraged the population to build trenches. Probably he had prepared something else, a whole organisation, because when 5 June started, the first bombings they heard, the planes that saw the boats, everything got organised very quickly.
My father was young, so he went to have a look, anyway, to see what was going on. And there he saw this sea full of ships, all this wonderful landing. And so during the day, he went to get my mother. He'll bring her along and tell her: ‘you'll never see that again, come and see it’.
My grandfather and father left to organise the relief effort and soon found themselves at the heart of the fighting, in the middle of the tank battle, fetching the wounded from the schools.
And there was no doubt about it... The first-aid post had been completely blown up. So they knew that my grandfather was there. So my father went with other local people, of course, to clear the first-aid post and find the 15 dead under the rubble.
Lion lost the mayor, the doctor, the nurses, my grandfather who was head of passive defence, and the teacher who was his deputy for passive defence. In short, the town was quite affected by these deaths.
On 6 June, of course, my family was very involved. You have to realise that, at the beginning, there was no monument on our side. So the only ceremony we had was at Hermanville British Cemetery.
My father was very involved, as he was a local councillor and deputy councillor in the early days. He was president of the veterans' association and president of the French Souvenir.
When I was very young, I went with him and all my family to the cemetery every 6 June to pay tribute to the soldiers who fell during the D-Day landings.
I myself was a teacher in Hermanville and my teaching about the war...
...to put my teaching into practice, I always took my pupils to this cemetery, as it was in the commune.
War is something to be avoided at all costs and they are there to build peace. And that peace is built every day.
Peace doesn't fall from the sky, it has to be built, and we have to build it with our hands.
© 2026 | Transmissus
